


Stagnation

by twinfinite



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Childhood Friends, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, Recovery, my word doc for this lil fic was called ProcrastinationNation, original prompt was just "alphonse and winry go to the market", winry is the best and i love her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 19:53:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18817858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twinfinite/pseuds/twinfinite
Summary: "Alphonse choked out a small laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of needing permission to feel unhappy."A small but still significant moment in the days following Edward and Alphonse's grand return to Resembool.





	Stagnation

**Author's Note:**

> I miss this show, so every once in a while I like to write a short little something just to keep the fandom going.

It was one month after his return to Resembool with his real body, and Alphonse was getting antsy. 

Could you blame him, really? As thankful as he was for the constant stream of well-deserved relaxation and apple pie, there was something fundamentally unsettling about spending all his waking hours focused on regaining his lost muscle mass.

This was a normal day exactly thirty-seven days after the Promised Day. He was halfway through his mid-afternoon weight exercises when the thought occurred to him that if he had to sit through another set of ten arm curls, he’d probably throw the weights out the window in disgust. At least, he’d like to. His strength was returning too slowly, and he probably would have to settle for just dramatically dropping them on floor in a heap.

He liked to consider himself somewhat less of a hot-head than his brother, though, so he what he actually did was set the weights on the floor like a gentleman, pick up his crutch, and wander off throughout the house in seek of entertainment.

To his surprise, Winry was out of her workshop for once. He found her at the front door, on her way out.

“Oh, Al! What are you up to?”

“Are you going out?” Al inquired, not seeing much point in answering her question. He was never up to much these days.

Winry gave him an appraising look before saying, “I’m going out to the market to buy some more apples. Do you want to come?”

Al looked down at his legs, long and frail beneath him. The market was at least a two-mile walk, a distance that would a half hour for Winry and upwards of an hour for him. He considered reminding Winry of this fact to see if she wanted to reconsider the invitation, but quickly remembered just who he was dealing with.

“Sure,” he replied, as brightly as he could. He carefully followed her out the door into the bright summer afternoon, hesitating slightly on the stoop.

“Should we invite Ed, too?” he asked.

“Nah, I don’t think so. He spent all morning trying to fix the back porch like, you know, a normal person. He wouldn’t give up for hours.”

“So he’s passed out asleep right now, right?” 

“You got it.”

For a moment, they lapsed into silence. Al took note of Winry’s expression upon mention of Edward and his somewhat unsuccessful projects- fond but wistful. Neither of them quite knew what to make of an Edward without alchemy, and no one was talking about it, least of all Edward himself.

They weren’t talking about a lot of things, honestly. They’d been waiting years for exactly what they had at the moment, and no one wanted to be the first to break the spell of happiness.

And so they shuffled off, just the two of them, in a continuing silence. Still, the lack of conversation never felt out of place- not between them. The quiet was serene, companionable. It was a perfectly cloudless day, and the green hills seemed to stretch on for an eternity. A light breeze ruffled the tall grass surrounding the dirt path, and the sensation of the wind on his skin sent a slight shiver up Alphonse’s spine. The smallest perceptions still felt new and fragile to him, and he wanted to enjoy the acclimation without distraction.

The serenity could only last so long, however.

“Winry, can I…” Al trailed off, unable to catch his breath after only ten minutes of attempting to keep a normal pace.

“Do you need a break?” she asked, her hand going protectively to his arm.

“I don’t need a break,” he wheezed, lying. “I was…just trying to ask…if I could help you…make dinner.”

“Bored, huh?” Winry was humoring him by not commenting on his obvious exhaustion, but she didn’t resume walking.

Al shrugged. Squinting off into the distance, he could see the market on the horizon. It seemed so far away, yet he distinctly remembered how short the trip used to feel as a child. He could just barely make out the sight of a gleaming pile of watermelons by the store front, and he found a new burst of energy upon imagining the taste of fresh fruit. The sight was a reminder that just needed to make it there and he would be rewarded.

Al resumed walking, leaving Winry to fall back into pace with him after a brief hesitation. He could feel the weight of her gaze as he continued on, gradually more unsteady. His legs felt heavy and uncoordinated in spite of his firm determination.

When his left leg finally decided to give out on him, he tried to catch himself before he had the chance to fall down entirely, but Winry beat him there. She grabbed him by the arm and guided him down to the side of the road with a practiced grace.

“Alphonse,” she said firmly. “Slow down.”

Feeling absolutely spent, Alphonse found himself splayed out on the grass, unable to force his wobbling limbs to move. Winry laid down next to him and looked out towards the sea of bright blue above them. She said nothing. 

“This shouldn’t be taking this long.” Alphonse broke the silence.

Normally, he kept these kinds of thoughts buried deeply underneath his natural preference for positivity as well as a healthy dosage of pride. Yet, there was something about that particular day that caused a brief moment in which frustration outweighed positivity, and before he could control himself, it slipped out.

“Ed managed to recover from two automail surgeries in a third of the normal recovery period and I can’t even get through a trip to the market after all this time.”

Alphonse immediately was swept with a wave of regret after this outburst, and Winry’s reaction certainly did not help. Maybe he was expecting some form of comfort from his friend after letting his guard down so thoroughly, but instead he was met with a look he couldn’t remember ever seeing from her before. She seemed caught between the urge to punch him in the face or start laughing.

She settled for something in the middle, letting out a half laugh before turning to address him sternly.

“You idiot.”

“I didn’t mean it like- I shouldn’t have—” Al began backpedaling.

“You’re wrong in so many different ways that I don’t even know where to start.”

“You don’t have to—”

“No, I do!” Winry insisted. “First of all, you’ve come a long way, but it’s okay to be frustrated. You don’t have to pretend like it isn’t hard sometimes. We know it hasn’t always been what you’d expected.”

Hearing these words out loud for the first time hit Alphonse harder than he’d anticipated. Without realizing it, he had been operating under the assumption that Edward and Winry were both oblivious of his growing sense of stagnation. He heaved out a sigh.

“I’m tired of feeling weak.”

“You’re getting stronger every day, you know. You just have to be patient,” Winry reminded him gently. “Which leads me to my second point: since when do you think Ed’s a good role model for recovery?”

Al flushed at this accusation; he’d hoped she wouldn’t bring it up.

“I don’t! But…you have to know what I mean! He always just seems to walk everything off in two seconds.”

Winry gave him a dark look.

“He lets you and everyone else see what he wants you to see, but believe me when I tell you that he didn’t recover from automail surgery in just a year.”  

“What do you mean?”

“He may have run off to join the military after a year, but he wasn’t technically ready. No licensed automail professional would have cleared him to run off like he did. His ports were a mess! I don’t think they ever quite healed right, honestly.”

Winry flipped over onto her side and addressed Alphonse with a fierce intensity.

“That’s my point, Alphonse. You can’t rush this and expect the results to be what you want them to be.”

Alphonse felt stinging at the corner of his eyes, and he turned away, not wanting Winry to see.

But Winry saw today, and she probably always had.

“You brothers are always trying to play it off cool, huh?” she said, forcing a laugh. “Just be sad if you need to be, dummy.”

Alphonse choked out a small laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of needing permission to feel unhappy, and then he finally gave in. The tears fell.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to roast me in the comments.


End file.
